Taiwan China ECFA free-trade pact

Taiwan China ECFA free-trade pact
28.06.2010 11:25:01 Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement (ECFA) will comprise the most significant cross-strait agreement between China and Taiwan due to be signed on June 29th in Chongqing.The site of the Kuomintang’s headquarters during the Chinese civil war—will lower tariffs immediately on more than 800 goods and services and otherwise set out ways in which the two sides will regulate and liberalize trade over the next several years.

(live-PR.com) - Taiwan's chief negotiator on cross-Strait affairs Chiang Pin-kung arrived here Monday for talks with the Chinese mainland, at which the two sides are expected to reach a hugely significant and long-awaited economic pact.

Mr Ma’s Kuomintang party (KMT) has seen recent setbacks in local elections. The DPP in ballot battle an uphill task to regain power, but if it does


win the presidency in 2012 then cross-strait tensions, currently at their lowest ebb in over half a century, are sure to surge again. DPP said 100,000 demonstrators took part in Saturday’s demonstration, police put their numbers mere modest 32,000, adding that the protesters’ ranks diluted out considerably after Taipei’s humid, leaden skies broke out with a thunderstorm. Thousands standing in torrential rain and wearing a farmer’s straw hat, the DPP’s chairwoman, Tsai Ing-wen, told a cheering crowd, the pact would benefit big conglomerates by victimizing small businesses, enlarging the gap between rich and poor. “Our relatives, friends, even the next generation will be its victims.” Ms Tsai assured the crowd on Saturday that if the government continues to quash referendums the KMT will be taught a lesson at the polls.

Beijing the thinking is that by offering economic sweeteners to the renegade island, China can engender goodwill among the Taiwanese. China to lower tariffs for 539 categories worth US$13.8 billion in trade to the Taiwanese industries which are hardest-hit from the ASEAN-China agreement, including textiles and petrochemicals. China to open up 11 service categories, including its banking sector. Taiwanese banks in China will be permitted to do business in renminbi a year sooner than other foreign banks are allowed; this is, essentially, the same treatment China gives Hong Kong's banks. In a bid to please politically-sensitive Taiwanese farmers, the deal includes 18 categories from the farming and fishing sectors, even though China has promised it will not push Taiwan for freer trade of its own agricultural goods.
Democratic Progress Party (DPP) said Monday that it respects the decision of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) to file a new application Wednesday calling for a referendum on a landmark cross-Taiwan Strait trade pact, which is scheduled to be signed Tuesday.

The chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, Chiang Ping-kun, said the pact known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement ECFA was the most comprehensive deal ever to be forged by the two sides. Mr Chiang was speaking before leaving for Chongqing, where the agreement will be signed tomorrow. The pact will lead to preferential tariffs for more than 500 Taiwanese product categories stretching from petrochemicals to textiles. It will apply to about half as many mainland items.
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